


don't go, you're still young

by niosism



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Canon Trans Character, Gen, Heartbreak, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Sex, Masochism, Mommy Issues, mention of past rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27000850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niosism/pseuds/niosism
Summary: He is not convinced that the first death hurts the most, as the poets say; he has fallen for poetry’s lies too many times to believe in them anymore. It is easy to deceive when it comes from a place of beauty. The devil was an angel once, and now you’d like to try your part of destructive poison, but in your own mindless self-indulgent way.But sometimes it's too much to keep it all in, and it spills like squeezed fruit before you can stop it.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	don't go, you're still young

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loquaciousSkeptic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquaciousSkeptic/gifts).



> This fic came about thanks to my friend dari's lanque playlist. i listened to it while writing this & it's perfect.
> 
> Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/c-lanque-bombyx/pl.u-8aAVM5ycoxXDDEb
> 
> Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ey1YbIPRlsXS96KiugI45?si=MJSQbZjjRr6RvjiyMCa-nQ
> 
> Title based off lyrics from Eros & Apollo by Studio Killers.

Lanque knows himself.

He knows he is beautiful and desirable. He knows trolls want him, and he gives them what they want, often without a single word, because as soon as he opens his mouth, the ones he most desires leave him to the wolves. It wasn’t always something he resented. In the past, he enjoyed mingling with the outcasts and the rebels; depressed anarchists, deadbeat punk bands, and suicidal socialists. Dangerous trolls to be around. But now it’s different. Now he has become one of them. He wouldn’t go as far as to call himself any labels, but he knows he is somewhere between a manslut and a whore, and he’s not sure manslut is even the right term, considering his… body. In this society, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, unless you are a Jadeblood, unless your genitals did not match your gender identity. 

Lanque thinks of Daraya. It’s something they have in common; the resentment of their bloodcaste. You’d rather the apocalypse come to rip the planet to shreds, you’d rather see bloodshot eyes, you’d rather see Daraya’s tired, blood-tinged eyes and dark circles every single day in the cloister than wait for your own personal third death, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt. He is not convinced that the first death hurts the most, as the poets say; he has fallen for poetry’s lies too many times to believe in them anymore. It is easy to deceive when it comes from a place of beauty. The devil was an angel once, and now you’d like to try your part of destructive poison, but in your own mindless self-indulgent way.

He thinks of Daraya because you used to be friends back in the day. You remember running after her in the playground, crashing into each other and rolling around in the mud. You remember how she used to poke your cheek and turn bright green when you turned to face her. You remember your long hair, just as long as Bronya’s, and you wonder if Daraya would still blush if you talked now after years of champagne. Probably not. Now, having two of the most chaotic trolls in the cloister in the same room is too much to handle. 

If people say you’re just a piece of cake, then everyone else is just a piece of meat. You do not give yourself unwillingly; you are not “easy”, and whoever’s mouths those words come out of, they’re in for a real treat when the drones come knocking on their hive at ungodly hours of the sunlight. You have hacker friends; mostly just Mallek, if you’re honest, the rest of them look at you funny sometimes. You’ve considered sending the drones after them. 

Today, you find yourself at some cerulean’s hiveparty. A vague “Why is it alWays bluebloods” thought crosses your mind when you spot the host in the kitchen, filling two, three, four cups of punch, and carrying them to various different trolls in the area. You squint your eyes for a second, kinda suspicious, and decide to walk over there and get your fill too. The music here sucks ass; you need a drink to wash it down. 

The multicolored strobe lights flashing three ways to Sunday against an otherwise blinding darkness and the smell of strong liquor radiating off sweaty bodies never told him specific absolutes on the whereabouts of the places he sometimes found himself in. It was all a game, he thought. The way people would pick and prod at his thirsty mind at first notice whenever he walked someplace he shouldn’t have and the consequences that piled up whenever he told them “WhateVer dude” and brought them to the bedroom.

His mind and body had long been shattered into pieces sometime during his secondary education when a Jade he’d rather not name stalked him like prey and fed off his tears. It had been shattered when that Jade had pushed him against the wall so hard his head spun. It had been shattered when they ripped his favorite jacket, tore through his clothes, bruised his groin, choked him, gave him one last push against his lips and threw him to the ground. It had been shattered because Lanque had never loved anyone in his life before he met this troll. And they had destroyed him. 

This was when Lanque decided he would not be able to stand on his own two feet if he didn’t get rid of the small mass of tissue growing in his chest, or the searing pain he felt in his nook. 

He thought that love meant that instead of trying to piece his heart back together, he had to step on it until there was nothing left but a memory of when he had a heart at all, when it had shrank and bled enough that it was gone in a whiff. Lanque liked to be self-deprecating, and he liked to step on people. If there was anything that he gained and not lost during his first flushed quadrant all those years ago, it was that. He liked to shit on himself and push his own shit down the stairs into someone else’s territory because it was like stepping on the soul to mute away the pain of a memory, and any hope of a future. He liked breaking things, especially himself, to drown out an illusion. 

Whatever Lanque was, he was self-made. 

If his younger self were to talk to himself now, he would say that it wasn’t him and demand a refund from the time machine for lying to him about something so important as his future. He would say “don’t go; you’re still young” and go burn down the caverns with Daraya. But that’s not possible, and Daraya is no longer there.

Heartbreak to him was something he could not feel because his heart had already been broken long ago. Born unlucky, he had been made out of cotton, easily broken apart and destroyed by the hands of many he hoped to forget. Daraya had been his safe place once, and so had Bronya, trolls that had fed him love and not starved him of it, or stolen it away. Lanque didn't know what love was until it came in the forms of Bronya and Daraya as a wriggler. The rest had been puppets playing pretend. And gog, if there was one memory that would be forever burned into the deepest parts of Lanque’s mind like the end of a lit cigarette against virgin skin, then it would be the fact that loving them had hurt like hell. It had broken all of his bones and afterwards he had wondered if this was how he overcame the heartbreak of another lost lover. To not have love as a young adult troll. It was a pain worse than death.

Lanque fills his cup while flicking his eyelashes from side to side; it’s a distraction from staring inside of an abyss of mixed alcohol. He takes a swig and scowls. Gross. He never asks what’s in his drink.

He thinks of Bronya. His brain does this thing sometimes where it picks out the most traumatic of experiences he’s had and pushes them to the front of his eyeballs, just behind his eyelids, at random times. In Bronya’s case, he always gets bursts of anxiety whenever she comes up. It makes his adrenaline rush, but not in such a way he would like, because cloister Jades don’t have lusi, they have Bronya, and where Bronya used to be a comfort for Lanque at times, she is now much more of a menace.

Bronya wasn’t obsessive, she certainly was more than kind to those she cared about, it was just that she had a way of pushing into people’s lives that made it hard for anyone to breathe on their own. A lot of trolls liked this about Bronya, and she was popular among the general Outglut population even outside of the caverns. Despite how some boys liked the way her eyes glared whenever they flirted, there were more who craved looks that made it hard for her to return, because Jades are meant to stay celibate, and Bronya was the finest example of that. Maybe that was why she began to stray from guys and stick with her kin. Daraya used to say that it would take more than just glaring at male solicitation to convince her that Bronya was in fact only into girls. It would take, as Daraya used to tease him about, before she knew of his inner turmoil, his “▲feminine charms.▼” 

When Lanque finishes his drink, he has a sharp desire to go home, but unlike always, he actually pauses for a second, and it’s one second too long, because before he knows it, Lanque Bombyx is bent over, grasping at the kitchen counter, gasping for air, wondering just what the fuck- 

When he manages to look back up, he sees Bronya. She’s livid, with her arms crossed, yelling some shit he doesn’t even understand. It’s all a blur to him now, and maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s his body finally giving out a last “hurrah!” before breaking down, he couldn’t care less. He is unable to feel anything when there are tears streaming down his face, and Bronya is staring at him now, mouth open, but not saying anything. She’s found him this time, and it was the worst night to find him. The one time he thinks about her in a way that is not immediately and wholly repulsive, she finds him, and he can’t-

“1. You are coming back home right now. 2. Lanque…”

She can’t find any words to finish her second listing, or maybe Lanque can’t hear them properly because she makes some surprised sounds under her breath, like choking on words, and it’s better than any moan any of his sexual partners have ever given him. It’s not sexual, it’s gentle, and entirely platonic. Lanque remembers that sound, and it makes the tears flow faster. She hugs him. 

“Let’s go home?” 

She asks you. She’s not ordering you, she’s asking you. 

Lanque wipes his face with his blazer and refuses to look Bronya in the face. Every single time she caught him red-handed, he would not even acknowledge how much he needed to face her, but in that moment, it had been impossible. His dam had broken before he could stop himself, and still, he prayed as hard as he could that he would not latch onto her like a lifeline. He couldn’t afford to lose so much.

There is nothing else for you to do now, so you take her hand and let her drag you away.


End file.
